Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council, has clashed with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has overturned many of his predecessor’s efforts to protect Jews and Israel. But the two aren’t engaged in a “proxy war,” according to Menin.
“There are areas of agreement, and then there are areas of disagreement,” she said at the annual American Jewish Press Association conference at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan on June 4. “That is natural between a mayor and a speaker.”
Mamdani vetoed a bill that passed the council without a sufficient majority and would have directed the New York City Council to create and present a plan to protect religious schools with “buffer zones” free from protest obstruction. He said he was letting a virtually identical bill about houses of worship, which the council passed with a veto-proof majority, go through because it was substantially different.
Menin, who speaks publicly about her Jewish identity and her family’s experiences during the Holocaust, said at the AJPA conference that she tends to meet weekly with Mamdani.
“In terms of supporting candidates for office, I support candidates for office who I believe in and who I believe are the best for the job,” she said.
Menin named City Council member Carl Wilson and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) as examples.
“I am endorsing candidates or elected officials that I have worked with and believe in,” she told attendees. “That’s really how I make the decision as to whether or not I’m going to make an endorsement.”
“I don’t think it’s so much a proxy battle,” she added. “It is more about endorsing the people that I think are best for the job.”
Menin told moderator Joe Strauss, a New York-based reporter and adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School, that one issue upon which she and Mamdani agree is the concern about the city’s housing costs and food prices.
Banning dynamic and surveillance pricing would help address the latter, she said. “In my opinion, and I used to be the commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, one of the best ways to lower prices is by banning dynamic pricing,” she told attendees.
“Dynamic pricing is literally a situation where you walk into a store, get a carton of milk, put it into your grocery cart, and it says it’s $5,” she said. “By the time you check out, that carton of milk has now been priced at $8.”
“We’re banning that practice,” she said. “We are 100% banning it. We’ll be the first jurisdiction in the country to ban dynamic pricing around groceries and surveillance pricing as well.”
Surveillance pricing is the practice of using consumers’ personal data to tailor prices to individual shoppers.
‘A clarion call’
The councilwoman also spoke at length about the City Council’s efforts to address Jew hatred in the city—an issue she has made the hallmark of her political career since taking office in 2022.
“I’m the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. My grandfather was killed in the Holocaust,” she said. “The idea that 34% of young people think that 6 million Jews were not killed, or that perhaps we were exaggerating about it, is so deeply upsetting that I just feel it is a call to action—a clarion call—to all of us to act.”
Menin told Strauss that she does not want her participation in the Israel Day on Fifth parade in Manhattan to be conflated with unconditional support for the Israeli government.
She was surprised when Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, attended the parade, she said.
“We did not know that they were going to be there,” she said. “We did not march with them.”
“Obviously, when people have criticisms of the Israeli government, just like I have criticisms of the Trump administration, I sometimes feel that there is a conflation between those things,” she said.
“People said, ‘Well, you’re marching in the Israel Day parade.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ That doesn’t mean that you agree with every action of the Israeli government,” she told attendees. “The parade is not the Israeli government parade.”
“It is a parade celebrating Jewish culture, Jewish pride, Jewish heritage and support for the Israeli people,” she said. “Just like when I march in a July Fourth parade.”
Menin, who marched alongside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Letitia James and other elected officials on Sunday, pushed back against the notion that support for Israel requires agreement with every policy of the Israeli government.
She said that she has publicly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his judicial reform proposals.
“I am someone who has expressed concerns in the past about Netanyahu, about the judicial reforms and things that happened before Oct. 7,” she said. “But I am incredibly focused on making sure that we are supporting Israel and the Jewish state.”
Asked if she believes that the Democratic Party is moving away from support for Israel, Menin replied that she is more focused on combating Jew-hatred in New York City. “I really try to focus on where I can move the needle,” she said. “Where I think we are moving the needle is standing up against the scourge of antisemitic incidents that are happening here in New York.”
Menin discussed the council’s buffer zone bills, including the one that passed the council but was vetoed by Mamdani.
“Basically, the bill is very simple,” she told attendees. “It says that congregants for any house of worship have the right to freely enter and exit their house of worship without intimidation, harassment or injury.”
“If there’s intimidation, harassment or injury, then it requires the NYPD to create a safe perimeter that protects congregants,” she said. “I think this is very common sense. I don’t think this should in any way be controversial.”
According to Menin, the legislation was prompted in part by protests outside Jewish institutions following Oct. 7, including demonstrations near synagogues in Manhattan and Queens.
“Obviously, the right to peacefully protest is sacrosanct—something that our country was built on, and we should always protect the First Amendment right to peacefully protest,” she said.
“But when that crosses a line, and, for example, at Park East, where congregants were intimidated or harassed, that is not protected free speech,” she told attendees.
“That bill passed the council 44-5, so it overwhelmingly passed the council and is now the law in the city,” she said.
Menin pointed to a series of initiatives she has championed in the City Council, including increased funding for Holocaust education and efforts to address Jew-hatred in public schools.
She also spoke about the council’s Jewish Caucus’s work with the New York City Department of Education after Oct. 7, including pushing officials to revise educational materials that described Hamas as a “political organization” rather than a terrorist group.
“I can assure you that I am laser-focused on protecting the Jewish community,” she said. “I would hate for anyone to think that they have to leave the city of New York, because they do not feel protected.”
That some could feel threatened enough to consider leaving the city is one of the main reasons that she and the Jewish Caucus created a “five-point plan” to combat Jew-hatred, as well as the buffer bills, she said.
“This has been a tough time, but Jews have a history of being gritty,” Menin said. “We persevere. We’ve dealt with so much adversity over countless generations, and we will persevere in this moment.”
